


Conjoined

by TheMouthKing



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alpha!Rhett, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, F/F, Knotting, M/M, Mates, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega!Link, Rimming, Smut, Sorry Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-23 06:02:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9643661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMouthKing/pseuds/TheMouthKing
Summary: Are we winning at conjoined twinning?Summary: What if we took another look at episode #999 with ABO colored glasses?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Babashook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babashook/gifts).



> This is in progress and will be edited. 
> 
> Don't read it, I mean it. It's not ready.

This was a bad idea.

Rhett had a bad feeling about it from the start. It was risky, but he tried to quiet his concerns by reminding himself that they weren’t just some dumb kids anymore accidentally setting off Link’s heat every time they turned around. They were adults, they had lives, they had the show to do — they couldn’t just be out of commission for a few days once a month because Link couldn’t function properly to film GMM, and then for another few days after to recover from it. Link started taking suppressants years ago so they could focus on their work. More pups were in their future. They had time for that down the road, but now was the time to focus on GMM, on Buddy System, on their music videos and various side projects.

So far so good. Link’s taken his suppressants for years without a hitch. It hasn’t affected their sex life overtly, either. Of course, Rhett misses the way things used to be, Link’s heat taking him by storm and the week spent fucking, taking care of him. They still fuck… it’s just _normal_. Which isn’t bad, but it’s not the same, and when Rhett’s rut had come last year he felt certain he was inconveniencing Link with it, like the overwhelming need he felt for Link like this was a bother to him at best, or painful and oppressive at worst. For sure, he felt that Link would have enjoyed it more if he weren’t suppressed.

Today they were duct taped together, front to back, for the conjoined twin challenge, playing a game where they had to get dressed like this. Link’s wearing platforms on his shoes to bring his height up to Rhett’s so their bodies align somewhat better. It’s almost effective. Link certainly fits better against him, the swell of his ass pressing against his crotch just so even if a lot of the rest of them doesn’t quite match up.

Rhett’s realizes almost immediately that something’s _off_. He feels it before he can smell it on Link’s skin — feels the way Link is managing to move back against him, not so subtly squirming his hips against him — giving away the fact that he’s uncomfortable.

Rhett didn’t really realize that he was reacting to this physically until Link called him on the drooling — he _was_ slobbering on him, he supposed, if you were going to phrase it that way. The reality of it was that Rhett’s just… a little bit sloppy. Link’s called him on it before and he’ll call him on it again, but gosh, he just can’t help it sometimes. Link just smells so damned delicious…

Rhett realizes all of a sudden that they’re not going to be able to get this done without laying down on the floor together. He knows exactly what that’s going to look like, and he knows Link does, too, but what choice do they really have? Of course, they could always just call the shoot off, but it seems like a lot of effort wasted to bail in the middle. Plus, he can only imagine how entertaining this has to be to watch. So Rhett suggests it, and Link is surprisingly quick to agree to it. He’s not quite sure what he’d expected. It’s not like being this close to each other is new, but Link tends to value his privacy. This is by far the closest they’ve been on the show, and for Link to agree to sink down into such a compromising position should have tipped him off that things were slipping out of control.

That, and how impossible it apparently is for Link to focus. What had started out as mostly a joke, the fact that Rhett’s role in this game was to guide Link’s movement, was reality now. They’ve just managed to sink to their knees, which is killing Rhett (they’ve gotta move and get positioned somewhere else because how they’re taped together is putting unreal pressure on his joints), when Link starts to sway like he’s completely forgotten what they’re doing.

“Yeah, let’s dance a little…” Link sidetracks while Rhett is trying to talk Link through his idea.

It’s up to Rhett to keep moving this train wreck forward.

“No no, no no… go like this…”

They make it to the floor but Link is already pretty out of it. Not so much so that Rhett thinks it’s impossible to steer them through this, but enough that he’s laughing and unfocused and Rhett can feel that his attention is elsewhere, not on the task they’re trying to complete, but on the experience of being stuck together. Rhett knows it’s hard to keep his own thoughts from drifting to _other_ times he’d found himself stuck with Link.

They work clumsily to try and wrestle the pants on, only to get waylaid by Link again, who apparently surfaces enough to suddenly be aware that they’re not alone.

“There’s like eight or more people watching…”

“Oh yeah, yeah, we’re not alone…”

Rhett’s getting warm from this whole thing. It doesn’t seem unusual at first. It’s just the proximity to another human, it’s the spandex get up he’s wearing, the duct tape and the lights and the stress of the challenge… but Link is burning hot. Rhett can feel it coming off him in waves, like he’s a goddamn heater, and it’s seeping into his body where they’re pressed together. Link’s body heat isn’t the only thing that’s seeping over Rhett; he can feel the slick soaking through the back of Link’s thin athletic shorts and the front of Rhett’s.

It’s unmistakable then, that delicious scent that’s pouring off of Link’s skin. He’s in heat.

Dipping his voice low enough he hopes the mic won’t pick it up, he breathes, “Link… you took your pill, right?”

“Huh?” Link asks, already getting a little fuzzy, easily distracted as his heat starts to sink its claws into him, not quite able to put his thoughts into words.

“Your suppressant, Link. Did you forget to take it? ‘Cause… your smell…” Rhett manages, but lets the sentence drop off because he’s trying to focus on fighting the pants down by their feet so they can try and get their legs in one of the pant legs, but it’s proving impossible.

“…oh _shit_ ,” Link breathes.

“You wanna bail?” Rhett asks, “We could…” Christ, being bound to Link like this, with no option but for his face to be pressed up against Link’s neck is going to be the death of him. Link hasn’t had a heat in _years_ and he’s missed this sweet scent, all Link but concentrated and seductive as hell. They could bail… and they could get the crew to let them up and slip off to the nap loft and sink into the first wave of Link’s heat, let it drown them both.

“…no, I wanna… wanna finish this,” Link is trying so hard to focus, trying so hard to finish what he’d started here. The truth is, neither of them want to bail — they’ve never bailed on a GMM before and they’re stubborn and stupid enough that they don’t want to start now. And it’s entirely possible that Link’s heat is clouding both of their judgments.

“Go on, roll onto your back…” Link urges him, writhing to enforce the command, rolling over onto Rhett.

The position they suddenly find themselves in puts Link’s ass very firmly pressed against Rhett’s no longer entirely soft cock. He can’t help it — he’s drenched in Link’s slick and drowning in the scent of him. Rhett presses his face against Link’s sweat-damp neck and breathes him in as he tries and fails a couple of times to guide the huge pants over their bound right legs.

By the time they’re fighting their legs through the first pant leg, Rhett hears himself, to his horror, utter the word _penetrate_ like some kind of ill-thought out encouragement to inspire them to succeed. It doesn’t escape anyone’s attention. He hears a few snickers from the crew but they barely register because all of his attention, all of his focus is taken by Link and his response to that single word comment, is a soft gasp and this slow grind of his hips, pressing his ass back flush against Rhett’s body.

“I’m sooo tired!” Link cries out, head falling back against Rhett’s shoulder. Rhett knows he isn’t just talking about the exertion of what they’re doing, but of the wave of exhaustion that comes with the start of his heat.

“I’m gonna have to roll,” Rhett manages finally, and he’s barely gotten the words out when Link plants a foot and moves like it had been a command and Rhett finds himself quite suddenly with his back flat on the floor and Link laying right on him. The layers of clothes between them were so drenched with Link’s slick that they clung to their bodies uncomfortably, and like this, with Link’s ass pressing into the cradle of Rhett’s hips it’s all Rhett can do not to tear the wet clothes off of them and take him here like this. He barely cares that they’re taped together — that’s _fine_ by him. Given about five minutes, they’re going to be more soundly tied together…

“Jesus Christ…” Rhett hisses against Link’s ear. It’s impossible to think with the thick fog of Link’s heat wrapping around his brain like a blanket. They’ve gotta focus. They can get this done, they can get dressed in these goddamn pants and finish out the show. Rhett can guide them through this. He’s got more self control than this. Hell, it’s not the first time he’s guided Link out of an awkward situation when his heat hit him without warning… they’d just never been filming when it happened before.

Rhett’s hands are starting to shake. They end up rolled away from the crew, and it gives them a brief reprieve, a moment where the expressions on their faces aren’t available for scrutiny. It’s a narrow window that Rhett knows he can get away with pushing — he shouldn’t loosen his grip on his self-control, but he can’t help it, it slips — and he’s nosing into the mating mark on Link’s neck, lips brushing against it, the heat of his breath raising a shiver on Link’s sweat-damp skin.

That move earns Rhett a full bodied shiver from his mate, Link just utterly melting back against the taller man, pliant and eager and swiftly sinking beneath the weight of his heat. Rhett doesn’t need to look him in the eye to know that Link is retreating and his omega is surfacing; he can feel that in how he moves, in the soft, fretting sounds he’s starting to make.

Rhett starts to get outrageous to cover it, struggling the pants on with exaggerated moves and humor, making a big deal out of it, hamming it up to draw the viewer’s eye away from Link and his (really obvious and apparently overwhelming) need. It takes every last shred of self control not to just roll Link over and _take him,_ especially when his whole mind is muddled and clouded with the overwhelming scent of him. He feels like he’s thinking and moving slow, like trying to wade through molasses, too caught up in this to make it out without drowning. And the truth is, he’s not that effective at trying to cover up what’s really going on. No one’s really paying Rhett much mind, especially in light of the display Link is putting on, among mythical beasts and mythical crew both.

The experience is undoubtedly different for the crew, because the crew can smell exactly what’s going on. There are only a few of them who’ve been part of the crew long enough to remember the last time Link went into heat, years ago, before he’d started taking suppressants, but that doesn’t mean there’s a single person present who doesn’t know what’s going on. Everyone’s becoming aware of just exactly what’s going on as the thick scent of Link’s need takes over the room. At first it just pulls some laughter from the crew as their antics went from ridiculous to just this side of scandalous, but by the time it’s shifted into the realm of very nearly pornographic, they’re all starting to really have a problem on their hands.


	2. Collateral Damages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys set off a hedonistic chain reaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still in progress, still not edited.

That problem is that Link’s heat is setting off a hedonistic chain reaction.

Alex was the first casualty of this war. 

Was it Link’s fault, in the end, or was it Rhett’s? It’s hard to know. Arguably, this could all be pinned on Stevie and Chase, who’d suggested this as an episode idea and pushed for it to go in this decidedly questionable direction. They had to have had some inkling of just how out of hand it could get. Or perhaps they just hoped it would.

It’s hard to say just what it was that set Alex off, whether it was the situation unfolding before them and the scents rolling off of the two men, well, rolling around on the set, or if it was the way Mike was looking at him all of a sudden. 

Mike has never looked at him like that before. They’ve been friends for years and Mike is always just so laid back, so relaxed, but the way he’s looking at Alex now is like he wants to swallow him whole.

In spite of the noise and chaos around them, the moment has narrowed down to just the two of them. Alex feels trapped by how Mike is staring, like he’s being held pinned. It feels like if one of them moves, they’re going to set off a spark that’s going to ignite this tension between them. Alex feels that little telltale rush of warmth in his belly, between his legs, his body betraying him. That’s when Alex makes the mistake of looking over at the boys, the thirst in his eyes as obvious as the scent that’s filling the room. 

Alex couldn’t help looking, it felt like his gaze was drawn away, magnetic, his attention caught by the keening sound Link had just started making. He’d barely let the image of Link with his neck bared, head resting back against Rhett’s shoulder, equal parts vulnerable and needy burn into his brain when he feels a hand against his chest. 

The next thing Alex knows, he’s stumbling backwards, tripping over wires on the way to being pressed up against the wall by a suddenly and fantastically possessive Mike. 

“Don’t look at them.”

Oh, _fuck_ , he’d all but growled at him. 

“Jesus, Mike…” he’s huffs a hollow chuckle, trying to laugh it off, but there’s nothing funny about what Mike is doing to him. That subtle rush isn’t so subtle now; he’s very aware of the slickness between his legs and how suddenly and desperately he wants Mike. This had come out of nowhere, but it feels like being hit by a freight train. 

Mike smells incredible. Has he always smelled this good? His scent is all mixed up with the smell of Link prominently everywhere, but he can still pick it out — it’s closer, Mike’s standing inches away from him, close enough that he wouldn’t need to do more than lean in to kiss him. 

Alex doesn’t have to, because a moment’s hesitation is all it takes to push Mike into action. Mike’s thinking much the same thing as Alex is, wondering if Alex has always been this fucking delicious. How long have they worked side by side, even rough-housed on occasion, and he’s only realizing this now? It feels like he hasn’t been looking at Alex at all for years and just now he’s actually seeing him. 

Mike leans in close and there’s a moment where it seems as though he might kiss him and Alex’s eyes slip closed, _waiting for it_. Mike’s hand slides down his chest slowly as he moves in, eyes cast down on his parted lips when Alex’s head tips back against the wall, exposing his throat to him. As if Alex can hear the last thread of coherent thought in Mike’s brain, the question that’s not quite able to surface — wanting to ask if this is what Alex really wants — Alex breathes, _“Please…”_

It’s not even really as though they need words here. Their scents say it all, how much Alex wants to be taken, claimed, and how badly Mike wants to possess him. 

For Chase, it’s starting to be difficult to know just where to look. Should he be watching their bosses struggling not to mate on the floor, or their coworkers who are bonding behind camera one? Chase is sitting off to the far right with a fantastic view of both — how lucky is he? — and is looking back and forth between the two scenes. 

_Three scenes._

Mike is biting Alex while Rhett valiantly restrains himself against the onslaught of Link’s delicious heat, guiding them into the giant, oversized pants while Link swiftly loses the last shreds of his control. At the same time, there’s a fresh situation brewing. 

Lizzie’s got this look about her, distant, dazed, distracted… not unlike that hazy look Alex had, watching Link succumb to the position he’d found himself in when his heat struck. The mess of scents in the air has her lost and overwhelmed, and she’s got the mistaken idea that no one can tell that the boys aren’t the only ones affected by what’s going on. 

That’s not the case, not even remotely. Jen, who’d been sitting at Lizzie’s side through the shoot, both of their laptops open on the table they’re seated at, is distinctly aware of Lizzie’s situation. _Distinctly._

Jen isn’t particularly subtle about it either, the way her thigh bumps against Lizzie’s to steal her attention from the unfocused gaze towards the set. It does the trick, breaks the spell, and Lizzie blinks once or twice before glancing down at their legs. She’s a little slow to react, a little fuzzy, but it doesn’t take her long at all to catch on to just what it is that Jen had meant by the move. 

Her lips part in a soft, startled ‘o’ to find herself the sudden focus of Jen’s attention. 

Which is about when Stevie decides to make it known that this isn’t a situation she’s alright with. 

“Hey!” Stevie’s voice comes in a sharp rebuke, “Watch it.”

Some words are exchanged… and a punch is thrown. There's an all out fist fight breaking out over a very overwhelmed looking Lizzie, shocked to find herself the cause of a fight between the two female alphas. 

Fuck if _that wasn’t the hottest thing she’s ever seen._

Chase watches the fight unfold and he briefly considers going to try and break it up — after all, he doesn’t want to see his friends fighting — but as it turns out, he doesn’t have to. Lizzie had apparently decided to take it on herself to break up the fight. 

By insinuating herself between the other women, her backside pressed suggestively against Jen’s body as her hands trail over Stevie’s hips, her eyes cast low as her body tries to figure out which way to lean. 

“…there’s more than enough of me to go around,” she breathes, her voice low, almost tentative, not sure how it would go over. It sure as hell isn’t typical. She’s only ever read erotica about threesomes with two alphas. Even the porn on the topic wasn’t real, the roles played by betas and not as hot as the idea was in her mind. But this, here… maybe they could make this work. Maybe she could make it happen. 

Jen’s hands find Lizzie’s hips easily and draw her in close until her ass is pressed flush against her, and then she’s nosing in against Lizzie’s neck, unabashed and competitive when she catches Stevie’s attention past the delicious omega between them. Stevie’s eyes flash dark, but she drinks the picture in front of her in. Jen may be touching her, and Lizzie may be encouraging that, but Lizzie’s also stretching herself out against the solid support of Jen’s body, baring her throat for Stevie with intent. 

Stevie’s moving in close without really realizing what she’s doing, Lizzie drawing her in with a hand fisted in her shirt. It’s magnetic the way Stevie’s hands find Lizzie’s body, and it’s a tense negotiation between the two alphas as Stevie noses in against Lizzie’s neck, breathing her in while Jen scents through her hair. 

Lizzie has the passing thought of what it would be like if the two women both tried to claim her, mark her with their scent to warn other alphas against making a move on her. Fighting each other for possession of her, what it would be like to be caught in the middle of that. It feels dangerous, feeling the brush of the two women’s bodies against hers, their faces pressed to her skin, her scalp, with a slow friction, a hint of lips, the drag of teeth, especially knowing just how easily one or both of them could bite down on the soft skin of her neck and thoroughly lay claim to her. 

If she hadn’t been soaked already, the way Jen’s hands slid down her front from behind to pull her body back while one of Stevie’s slender, long-fingered hands found its way up under her shirt would have her swiftly there. Her heat can’t be here already — hadn’t she just had it? Well, she supposes that it wasn’t really as though anything had happened during it — she’d just holed up in her apartment, doing what she could to alleviate the agony of it by herself. The proximity of these two capable and interested alphas seems to have caught her body’s attention and kicked her cycle into gear.


	3. Good (Mythical) Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew are good mythical jerks, if you ask Rhett.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No smut yet, but it should be there in the next chapter. 
> 
> Pardon my bad jokes.

While Rhett struggles to control himself enough to guide the two of them through the end of the challenge, practically every other person in the room around them has begun to swiftly lose their goddamn minds. 

By the time they’ve got the Guy Fieri head on and managed to get through their outro, half of the crew are in the middle of their own spontaneously set off… situations. Chase is one of the few who aren’t _occupied_. He’s just standing outside of the shot, eating one of the leftover gluten-free waffles and watching with rapt attention everything that’s going down all around him.

Rhett waves his arm — both of their arms, because they’re still very much taped together — in the direction of Kevin, who’s still manning the camera. 

“Turn that off now. I’m serious. _Now_.” 

Most of the time they just keep it rolling and see what of the in-between stuff they can edit into GMM or GMMore and scrap the rest, but today isn’t one of those days. The Guy Fieri head hits the ground and Rhett is going for the buttons on their shirt, trying to get it off. It’s not working well, because he’s taped to be the guiding hand, not the active hand, and Link is so far beyond a place where he’s able to really help. 

“Chase, come help,” Rhett calls, not even looking up at the young man who’s clearly heard them but decided to take his sweet time in coming on over to help. 

“Lookit what you did, Link… you smell so damn good you set everybody off…” Rhett’s drawl is creeping back into his deepening voice, his nose pressed against Link’s neck, breathing in the warm scent of his skin as he works to get them out of the clothes, fumbling the giant pants undone so Chase can help cut them apart. 

Rhett can feel Link’s body reacting, how he's leaning back against him, tugging their (stilled joined) arms in closer to his body. Link’s trying to get Rhett’s hands on him, his arms around him, the shorter man squarely in the middle of needing to feel safe and comforted in the arms of his alpha and just desperately _needing him._ Rhett moves instinctively, his hands against the backs of Links as he holds the man against him -- as if the two of them had any choice in that matter. 

Link tries to say something coherent, perhaps to get Chase to hurry, or to beg Rhett to touch him but all that comes out is Rhett's name, the sound ground out like a desperate moan as he presses himself back against the taller man. 

_"Rhett..."_

Rhett groans, this little sound ground out of him, heavy in the back of his throat. His mate needs him -- he can feel that need in slick-drenched fabric clinging to the both of them and smell it in the air. If they don't get set free from being bound together Rhett's going to find a way to handle this himself. Maybe carry Link off to the nap loft just like this and manage to struggle their pants down enough that they can mate just like this, stuck together in more ways than one. It'd be an awful thing after, though, when they wanted to settle in comfortably, when Link really needed to be held. 

Without realizing what it was he was doing, while he stood there imagining fucking Link like this, he'd started to grind up against him, feeling his already hardened cock dragging against the soaked fabric that clung to it, against the top of Link's ass. 

Link makes this broken sound and it's actually a good thing Rhett's taped to him right then because he's sure he's going to collapse to the floor, that his knees will give way beneath his weight. 

"Chase, _please_..." Link actually manages words because he sees the younger man taking his time as he approaches them, as if casual and unconcerned. 

Rhett isn't happy about that, about the fact that Link is saying another man's name at a time like this, and he growls a little, low and warning. Link's answering whimper satisfies him and he noses into the mating mark on the neck and eyes Chase irritably. 

Normally this wouldn't happen. _Normally_ Link wouldn't be going into heat so publicly. He hadn't had one in years, and while Rhett hasn't forgotten, he hasn't had to deal with all of this quite so intensely in a while. 

And, well, this whatever the hell is happening around them... this mass-bonding orgy everywhere he looks... it's not doing a damn thing to help Rhett calm down. The scent of other alphas in the air sets him on edge. Of course they're _there_ every day, they all work together, but it's different when emotions are running high, when heat is in the air and more than one rut is set off in the wake of it. 

Rhett's gotta get away from this, and he knows that if he feels this unsettled that Link has to be beside himself. 

"Hurry up, Chase, I'm not messin’ around!" He doesn't usually snap at the crew, but, well, this is an unusual situation. 

By the time Chase makes his way over with the scissors and cuts their left hands free, Rhett’s trying to work their right hands free. Link’s free left hand is as good as useless for helping him, for all the ability to focus he’s got. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t try to help, though. He’s peeling uselessly at the tape around their waists, fingers trying and failing to find an edge. 

“Get our other hands first, c’mon,” Rhett urges him, guiding their right hands towards Chase, who’s taking care not to cut either of them while he works, which is a fair challenge, given how difficult Link is really being. 

“I’m _trying,_ ” Chase insists, fumbling a little with the scissors and daring a look up at his two wildly out of control bosses and adds with a sparkle of mischief that makes you wonder if the phrasing was intentional, “…you’re just making it hard.”

Chase, did you just. See yourself out. 

“There’s a time and a place, Chase…” Rhett grinds the words out, obviously fighting with himself to maintain his control over the situation, which he’s managing just barely. His body wants so bad to just pull Link back against him and _grind,_ to figure out how they fit together like this, not quite lining up like they are like this, even though he knows it’s a terrible idea for so many reasons. 

“Don’t tell me… at mating time, that place is your face?” Chase is trying hard to bite back the shit-eating grin, but he’s barely containing his mirth. 

“You’re lucky you’re one of the few able to help free us, or I’d fire you for using our lyrics against us at a time like this,” Rhett honestly doesn’t know whether to laugh or be mad at him. It’s certainly not appropriate, but then again… neither is this. And neither is anything else going on in the studio right now. As he’d said, there’s a time and a place, and that place _isn’t at work._

Which is why he wants to get unstuck from Link. 

So they can slip off somewhere quiet and comfortable and get stuck together all over again. 

“I don’t remember that being in my contract…” Chase muses as he slices down the tape at their sides. 

“Just make with the cutting.” Rhett’s beyond impatient. 

Close as Chase is — close as he has been — he can’t help but smell the both of them. Hell, he’d smelled them clear across the room. It’s Link mostly, to be fair. As a beta, Chase isn’t quite as prone as a lot of the others seem to be to being set off by the scent of Link’s heat and the prickling edges of what Chase suspects is Rhett’s oncoming rut, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to it either. He’s got a nose full of their scents and this close, _fuck_ , he can practically taste it. 

So maybe his hand brushes their thighs when he’s cutting their left thighs free. Thing is, that goes over surprisingly poorly — Link making this strange, pained keening sound and Rhett practically growling. 

Fuck. He sure as shit’s not immune to _that_. 

“Sorry, sorry…” he’s done screwing around now, and makes freeing them as quick of work as he’s capable of. 

When they’re finally no longer taped together, things are no less awkward and conspicuous. To start with, the both of them are wet with Link’s slick — Link’s back and Rhett’s front — and they’re dressed head to toe in orange spandex and gym shorts. At least Rhett’s wearing somewhat normal shoes. Link’s more than half out of his mind, and he’s wearing shoes with platforms taped to them. It’s a recipe for disaster. 

Luckily the nap loft isn’t far away. 

It doesn’t even occur to Rhett to wonder where everyone has gone. Mike and Alex are nowhere to be seen, and neither are Stevie, Jen and Lizzie. It’s just not on the radar, though, not even remotely. His one and only thought is that they’ve got to get to the nap loft with Link _now_ , before this situation gets any worse. 

The nap loft is already settled the way Link likes it, so they won’t have to waste time with Link trying to arrange a satisfactory nest in this state. 

“We’re done for the day… clear out,” Rhett says, his hand settling in at the small of Link’s back as he leads him off to the other room, towards the stairs by the nap loft. He doesn’t care right now that he’s sending the crew — well, the remaining crew that hadn’t fallen prey to Link’s apparently contagious heat — home midday. Nor the fact that they still need to figure out the More. Or that they don’t have a plan for what to do if this isn’t just a pseudo heat, and they need to come up with content to fill up a week. 

The only thing that matters is getting Link alone, getting him safe and away from everyone right now and giving him what he needs. What, increasingly, they both need. 

He’s sort of distantly aware that Chase says something else, but he’s not listening. At the base of the stairs, he decides the sneakers have to go. Link’s going to fall if he heads up wearing them, and as much as Rhett wants to, he just can’t carry Link up there. 

He sinks to his knees, “Oof.” Gosh, he’s bony. Yeah, he won’t be down here long. _Except_. Lord, Link smells so damn delicious. Rhett’s fumbling his shoes untied but he’s slowly losing the battle he’s fighting against the mythical beast inside him, the alpha that’s clawing the its way through the surface. That sweet scent of Link’s need draws him out every damn time, without fail, and by the time Rhett’s easing Link’s shoe off he’s catching himself nosing in against Link’s belly. Well, maybe a fair bit lower. Link’s clutching Rhett’s shoulder for balance and _actually_ sobbing because of how badly he needs Rhett right now. 

Rhett remembers a conversation he’d had with Link, where Link made this passing comment, something like _at least I’m not one of those incoherent, mindless omegas that sob and claw and just beg to be fucked._

Rhett had promised him then that sometime, he’d film Link when he was in heat to show it to him, to prove it, show him that he was exactly that, whether he thought he was or not. Rhett can remember how goddamn shy he’d gotten about that, blushing like some kind of virgin, as though he hadn’t taken Rhett hundreds of times before, heat or no. Rhett loved that in spite of everything, he could still make him blush like that sometimes, shy and sweet as anything. 

His heat’s never come on this fast. Rhett has to wonder if it’s an effect of having been on the suppressants so long, if his body’s making up for the lost time, if all of this has been there underneath the heavy blanket of the drugs and just waiting to surface. He doesn’t know exactly, but he’s never seen Link slip beneath the weight of his omega quite like this. 

“One more,” Rhett breathes the words against Link’s orange spandex covered belly and presses a kiss there, hands skimming up his sides to help hold him steady. He wants to keep touching, let his hand caress up the back of a thigh or down the swell of his ass to feel the wet of the slick making the fabric cling to his body like a second skin. “I’ve got you, babe… you’re alright…”

The second shoe comes off easy and then Rhett moves to stand, steeling himself against the overwhelming desire to just pull Link down to the floor beside him right here and now. 

He makes a soft little grunting sound that’s just about joints and standing up, as tall as he is. He slips his arm around the smaller man’s body, hand low on his lower back, and starts to guide him up the nap loft stairs. They make it to the top, only to find it occupied. 

By Mike and Alex. 

A very naked Mike and Alex. 

_It’s their nap loft._

Rhett’s mad, more because of the inconvenience than he is the intrusion. Link had it all nested. How the heck had they gotten it scented satisfactorily enough for Alex in so little time? Now they’ve gotta go find somewhere else and nest in a little bit. It shouldn’t be impossible — it’s their studio, after all, they’ve got other places where they can hole up — but that’s not the point.

This place was theirs. 

Rhett mighta told them off if they weren’t so… _well._

Link almost looks like he’s considering just joining them, but he knows he won’t. Even if he would, it’s not a good idea. The mess of all their scents together will be too much, too stressful for Link, so he scoops the smaller man close, arm at his back and herds him back on down the stairs, supporting him as they go. Link’s walking like he’s learning how to the more they go. The next place has to be where they land, or he’s going to have to carry Link before long. 

The office is the best bet. There’s a lock on the door and they’ve got the two sofas and a heap of hoodies that they swap out on set between the two of them — it’s perfect. 

Or it would have been if the girls hadn’t apparently taken it over. Apparently, because they’d also thought ahead and locked the door on them. Rhett can’t get in — where the heck are his keys? — and when he tries, there’s a snappish remark from inside, “Occupied!”

It sounds like Jen but also… it doesn’t quite. 

Rhett’s at a loss for a moment — where else can they go? He can’t imagine trying to drive Link home as bad off as he is right now. He briefly thinks back to the first time Link went into heat with him nearby, back before they’d bonded while they were driving out here to LA. That had come on slower than this, and he’d been on suppressants back then. He wonders why the difference, but he hasn’t got much brainpower left to ponder the thought. 

He’s got an idea, though, and he just prays that no one’s locked themselves in _there_ to fuck for the next several hours because if so, he’s going to have some good mythical words with people later on. 

“C’mon… I know, baby,” he murmurs when Link responds to the urge to follow with this awful, broken sound, pressing his body up against Rhett’s side, needing so much more than he can get from him out in the hallway here. He can feel how tired Link is already, and he just wants to get him in somewhere, get him safe so he can make it better. 

“I’ve got an idea…”


	4. Undressing Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SMUT. Please check new tags for... warnings maybe?

Inside their dressing room, Rhett locks the door behind them.

Everything changes once they’re inside. 

This isn’t going the way it normally does. Link’s completely bypassing the pull for sleep, or maybe he’s pushing through it. Maybe taking the suppressants for as long as he had did something to his natural cycle, interrupted the familiar pattern of his heat. Rhett expected Link to take some time to gather up some supplies, to pull out hoodies and stashed blankets and settle into making a nest in the room, but that’s not what happens. 

He ends up with an armful of Link is what happens. 

Once it starts, it’s frantic. Link collides with him like he’s the aggressor — and sometimes he is when he’s not in heat, when he’s being a goddamn tease — searching out Rhett’s mouth with his and it takes Rhett off guard. 

Rhett’s hit with the full force of Link’s need, the heat radiating off his skin through the ridiculous orange fabric, as well as the solid weight of his body causing Rhett to stumble back against the door with a hard _slam_ and a low groan of pain that would be a bigger deal if his back were in worse shape today, and if he wasn’t starting to lose his footing between himself and the alpha that wanted so badly to take over. 

Link paws at Rhett’s orange jumpsuit like there’s a way to get it off just by tugging at it, half trying to and almost climbing Rhett to make up for the height difference which seems so much more pronounced in moments like this. Rhett takes the opportunity to fumble at the zip at the back of Link’s, tugging it down to the middle of his back before he turns them around, crowding the smaller man up against the wall with a dull thud and a moan muffled between their mouths. 

Rhett’s not wasting any time— with the zipper half undone, he’s tugging the jumpsuit down Link’s arms and off, exposing his shoulders and torso. 

Link ties to help, impatiently wrenching his arms free as soon as he possibly can, eager to be naked. To be that much closer to Rhett. Rhett stops him, catches a forearm in one large hand and stops him from twisting like he is, afraid he’s going to hurt himself in his frenzy. 

“Slow down, I got you…” he breathes in the space between their mouths, the words answered by this piteous whine from Link that says _slow_ is the last thing on his mind, the sound of it punching Rhett in the gut. 

Rhett can feel that his grasp on himself is tenuous, that he’s starting to slip beneath the weight of the alpha. Every breath he takes that’s all thick with the scent of Link’s need drags him a little further down, but he’s got to stay a little longer. He’s gotta make sure things are right, that they’re settled and comfortable once it really starts, because this ain’t ideal. Ideally, the nap loft wouldn’t be occupied and they could settle in someplace that Link had already set up a nest in. 

“C’mon… we gotta… gotta, um,” Rhett’s starting to struggle for words, as distracted by how badly he needs Link as Link obviously is with the sudden onset of his heat. 

Rhett’s never experienced it quite like this with him before. They’ve certainly had their fair share of interesting heat experiences. It had felt sudden when they’d bonded, the first time Link stopped taking his suppressants in the time he’d known him, but _gosh_ it had been nowhere near as sudden as this felt. This time it came out of nowhere and blindsided the both of them, a hundred miles an hour and without even the few hours heads up to give Link a chance to nest. 

“…we gotta find someplace to be… you gotta nest,” he reminds Link, who’s obviously beyond the point where nesting is even remotely on his mind, but the both of them will regret it in a half hour if they don’t make the time.

“Don’t wanna,” Link groans in complaint, pressing his face into the crook of Rhett’s neck and breathing him in, the scent of the taller man’s skin managing to soothe some part of this for Link. His hands grasp for Rhett’s body, clumsily catching him by the hips and pulling him in closer, desperate for more, for friction, for anything that will alleviate this ache inside him. “…I need you, Rhett…”

Rhett can feel Link’s hands shaking more than they normally do, uncoordinated fingers failing to catch the waist of his gym shorts. He can feel the need rolling off him in waves, the scent of it thick in the air around them, and Rhett has to take a breath, has to steel himself against the solid wall of it. 

“Babe, we gotta… c’mon,” he pulls Link away from the door and leads him into the room. Link doesn’t leave his side as they move deeper into the dressing room together. The fact that he doesn’t automatically start to gather things together tells Rhett just how far gone he is already, how he should have been nested and settled by now. It never goes well trying to set up nests for Link, but someone has to start. Rhett reaches into the pile of his folded hoodies and tosses a stack of them onto the floor and pulls a bunch of his shirts off a rack, hangers and all, and drops them on top. It’s not enough, not remotely, but it’s a start. 

“You can do this, babe… think how much you’ll regret it if we don’t,” Rhett pauses, wraps an arm around his shoulders and kisses the side of his head — careful not to start in again on something they’re not yet prepared to finish, even if it’s pulling at the last strings of his self-control. Link smells so good and it’d be so easy to just crowd him up against the wall again and pull the rest of that orange jumpsuit down… but then they’d find themselves stuck together for at least a half hour and nowhere comfortable to be. 

He moves past him, trusting for Link’s need to fix the mess of a nest that Rhett had started to kick in. In the mean time, he goes for a stash of spare pillows they keep in low drawers to add to the stack. They’re not leftover from the SleepBetter video anymore (all those are long-gone), but more recently from when they’d taped a bunch of pillows to Link and Rhett had whaled on him with balls and a bat. They always seem to have spare pillows around for something or other, and it’s never come in handier than it’s going to now. 

He tosses the pillows out as he finds them, one at a time out of the drawers, and by the time he comes back Link has magically found enough self control that he’s taking the hangers out of the clothes one at a time from the mess on the floor and, standing, pulling Rhett’s shirts down the same way so that the little pile he’s creating isn’t marred by uncomfortable plastic (and sometimes metal). 

_’Are you serious right now,’_ Rhett catches himself thinking in disbelief as he turns with two last pillows to add to the fray, only for Link to scoop them up swiftly and set them where he wants them. 

Rhett knows he ought to leave Link to it, but he keeps helping in spite of himself. He figures Link will want some things that smell like himself too — and apparently we’re being careful about the hangers suddenly — so he dips behind a rack on Link’s side and starts pulling shirts and sweaters down from their hangers, adding them to the pile. 

By the time he comes back around to check on Link’s progress, Link has not only rearranged absolutely everything that Rhett’s tossed in his direction into a very precise and orderly arrangement on top of a neat bed of pillows, but he’s outright rejected a few things that are now flung across the floor in the other direction. Among the things that made the cut into the astonishingly organized nest are Rhett’s lumberjack flannel shirt, the shirt _and_ the tutu from his tooth fairy costume (Rhett would have thought the tulle was too scratchy to pass the test, but who’s he to pass judgment here really?), the green spandex merman tail (fin and all), and his beige cactus sweater neatly bunched up as a pillow (as if there aren’t enough pillows). It’s certainly… interesting. He’s never in his life seen Link assemble a nest quite like this, and if he didn’t know better he’d have the passing thought that _maybe_ Link is on drugs. 

Link decides that it’s finished and is looking to Rhett, not necessarily for approval, but for his opinion on it. Some indication that he likes it. It’s obvious it’s important to him. Rhett knows that it is. It definitely has been in the past, but it’s never come up at quite _this_ phase in the game. It feels sort of surreal to realize that this is where they are right at this precise moment, standing here in the middle of the heady fog of Link’s heat. 

“It’s perfect, babe…” he breaks into a wide grin as he moves on in close to Link — he can’t help it. It’s so endearing when Link gets like this, when he needs so much reassurance. His big hands find Link’s hips like the pull is magnetic and he presses a kiss to the smaller man’s forehead, because it’s there, so easily reachable, and nuzzles in along Link’s cheek, nosing down his neck. He’s starting to walk them towards the nest with this slow sway, almost like dancing.

Their clothes come off in a frenzy then. Mostly Rhett’s responsible for it because all that focus that Link had managed long enough assemble a respectable, if unusual, nest is gone. Unfortunately, that means that while Link’s orange jumpsuit had been unzipped earlier, that Rhett rips his off. He can’t reach to undo more than the top few inches, and there’s no way he’s going to wait as long as he’d have to for Link to help him off with it — if he was even capable of it at all. The stretchy fabric alongside the zipper is ripped beyond repair by the time the costume hit the floor. 

Rhett’s gaze travels down the length of Link’s body as the orange fabric peels away, his attention drifting over the dark dusting of hair on his chest and lower, focusing for a moment on that little cocklette straining out of the thick nest of dark curls, so hard and so wet looking it makes Rhett’s mouth water. He knows there are alphas who don’t feel this way about their omegas, who wouldn’t ever go down on them — god knows why. It’s never been something he’s understood. Between getting to watch the way Link shattered when he took him apart at the seams and how he tasted over his tongue, it’s never been something he could resist doing for him. _But now isn’t the time for that._

Rhett’s vaguely aware that all of this has happened so fast that there’s a lot that’s gone unsaid. They’d had to hold it together through the episode, and the episode only made it worse, brought it all on faster. Once filming wrapped, they’d been left to frantically find somewhere to be. He doesn’t know what happened that Link forgot to take his suppressants, or when he’d stopped… all he knows is that he _has_ , and that for the first time in nearly four years, here they are, on the front end of what he knows from experience is going to be a long few days. Maybe if they’re lucky, in the middle of it, they can manage to make it home, but he sort of doubts it’ll be worth the stress of it. Besides, they’ve weathered more disjointed heats… he’s thinking specifically of that first one, and how they’d managed to handle it on the road, between Link nesting in the truck and stopping off to bed down in a motel. 

He’s slipping away between the layers of himself, the alpha welling up inside him and starting to take over. It’s not as though Rhett doesn’t (frequently) look at Link with an expression of hunger in his eyes, but it’s nothing like the way he looks at him now as he carries on crowding him backwards towards the organized chaos of clothes and pillows Link has assembled. 

He’s not even using words, just guiding him back by taking up the space he’s in so he can’t do anything but move, hands on his body, thumbs in the grooves of those skinny hip bones, nosing into the mark on his neck. He can feel the smaller man tremble with the hint of it, the suggestion of what he really wants there, _lips and teeth_. A flash reminder of that first time, of how it felt to be claimed. 

Link’s so far gone he can’t register the sound he’s making, and Rhett very nearly can’t either, but somewhere distantly he’s aware that Link is whimpering, high and needy. The sound does things to him, pierces him straight through like a white hot spike to his core, and his breath is loud as he exhales hot against Link’s skin. The way he’s breathing him in isn’t unlike the way a dog might, nose pressed to the crack of a door to discern who’s on the other side. To absorb every last hint of scent in the air, to keep it all selfishly for himself. 

Link likes being moved and maneuvered the way Rhett’s manhandling him, at least now, when he’s lost beneath the omega. His body’s screaming out for it, for more, for _anything_. He feels the hot press of Rhett’s hard and leaking cock against his belly as Rhett crowds him back to the edge of the nest and he gasps, body flinching like he’d been burned by it, like he’s trying to get more or turn away to present. He’s so overwhelmed he can’t even begin to figure out what to do next, and the panic is starting to be visible on his face and the frantic look in his eyes. He’s swallowed up in his need and he can’t see the way out, doesn’t know what to do to make it stop, to feed this ache. He hates feeling like this, so impossibly empty, so not himself. 

In more lucid moments, he thinks back and remembers the first time he’d felt like this and how confused he’d been by it. Even then he’d known somehow that Rhett was the answer here, the only person in the world who could make this better — and how hurt he’d felt that he couldn’t go to him for comfort and relief. It’s never been quite as bad as the first time, but every time, there’s always this spike of panic, this moment of _almost_. 

It’s different now, though — Link knows that Rhett will carry him through this now. That he’ll guide him when he’s so lost he doesn’t even know his own name. It quiets so much of the anxiety of it for him, lets him sink down into himself and just trust that the hands on his body will keep him safe and bring him home. 

Rhett’s hand slides away from Link’s hip, fingertips worrying over the small of his back and down the tight swell of his ass, skimming the divide between his cheeks. He hums his pleasure — almost a purr, almost a _growl_ — against Link’s ear as his fingers slip in the mess of slick he finds there, slow and easy up and down, barely grazing Link’s eager, swollen entrance. It’s a tease and it’s unnecessary, but it’s worth it to feel the way Link’s body shivers and jumps beneath his touch, how he leans into him as his legs go weak. 

“Present for me…” Rhett breathes against his skin, lips dragging damp over the faded mating mark on Link’s neck. After that, Link can’t move fast enough to comply, scrambling to all fours as he rolls back on his knees, ass high and presented to his mate. He arches his back, settling with his chest and cheek pressed to the mess of clothes and pillows beneath him. 

Link’s thighs are glistening with his slick, his dark body hair clinging wetly to his skin with it. The position holds him open, legs wide and cheeks spread, slick still seeping out of his ready hole. Link’s a mess already. Rhett doesn’t miss how Link’s thighs shake, waiting. 

Rhett moves to hands and knees behind him and crawls, not bothering trying to sneak up on him — he lets Link feel the brush of hands against his shins, bracing his weight as he noses in, inhaling the sweet, heady scent of his mate. He can’t resist — he takes the opportunity to lick his way between those spread cheeks, tongue swiping over his swollen entrance and feeling, intimately, the way his body reacts to not even remotely enough stimulation to satisfy the depth of his need. Link _keens_ , and the sound slams into Rhett like a fist to the gut and he groans and drags his face up Link’s back, beard tickling the omega’s oversensitive skin. Link’s shaking, his breath already gone thin and winded like he’s been running, and all he can do is desperately press back against Rhett like he’s got some prayer of taking what he needs. 

The way Rhett’s moving up along the length of his body limits Link’s ability to move — Rhett’s heavy on him, and close, their bodies dragging against each other as Rhett crawls over him. Link can feel Rhett’s cock pressed between his legs, not where it should be, but maddeningly _there_. The sound he makes is hardly human as he squirms beneath Rhett helplessly. 

Rhett nips at the mark on his neck from behind, not hard enough to break the skin again but hard enough to remind Link to whom he belongs. Link’s next breath comes gasped, like breaking the surface of the water after holding his breath, like he could finally get enough air — the reminder of the mark helping to center him, helping to calm him even in the middle of this storm tearing through him. 

Rhett takes him, not bothering with fingers first, not worrying about _slow_ — Link’s ready for this. Needy, desperate for it. The sound he makes is relief, this hard, guttural sound, deep satisfaction at finally, _finally_ being filled. Link’s described heat as this impossible, bottomless emptiness, an unrelenting ache to be complete. Rhett’s reflected on that description hundreds of times over the years and he thinks that there’s never been any description more apt — he feels it too, that pull to feel complete, to feel whole. It’s this insane need to get so close to Link that there’s no telling where Rhett ends and Link starts, to sink inside him and lose himself there. 

It’s hard to pick apart the sounds they they make as Rhett sinks into Link, as he fucks into him, their bodies setting a brutal pace. The sounds all bleed together, the crying and the intermittent, desperate sobs for air from Link and the harsh growling, grunting gasps behind him, hot against his ear. Rhett’s breathing in Link’s warm, musky scent with every breath, arms doing as much to hold himself up as they are just holding Link as he takes him. 

When Link starts to feel the tug of Rhett’s coming knot with every thrust he starts to fret anew. Rhett doesn’t need to ask to know, he can feel that every pass of his cock is dragging Link slowly, almost painfully closer to climax. It’s too intense — _too intense_ — Link doesn’t think he’ll survive this. What a way to die, though. He’s absolutely mindless, insensible to how obscene this all sounds, between his own sobs and cries and Rhett’s hard grunts, and the wet sounds their bodies make where they’re joined, sloppy and frantic. He comes before Rhett’s knot fully comes, the growing tug against his body and the slower, more deliberate drag of that thick cock over his prostate what sets him off and he’s trembling violently beneath the larger man, his body shaking, his muscles clamping down rhythmically around Rhett. Before it even registers in his conscious mind, the alpha knows what’s happening, knows that he’s got barely seconds to act or Link’s body will tense too much to sink back in — so he does while he can, that knot stretching through him as he stays pressed flush against his back, just rocking their hips together as Link’s orgasm tears through him, and as Rhett’s builds. The knot swells and Rhett carries on moving, slowly grinding their bodies together until he can’t help it, his hips moving of their own accord to tug, to just test whether he could still slip away from Link if he wanted to. The answering whimper from Link and the solid feel of being joined with him is what does it, what sets him off, and he comes hard and sudden inside of the omega, still slowly grinding against his body as he fills him. 

It’s here that Rhett realizes that Link’s heat triggered his rut, or, well, that he would have if he weren’t still lost beneath it. He’s not there on the other side of it, not yet — he’s still mindless, still moving against him, grinding their bodies together with this slow, possessive intensity. There’s almost an edge of danger to it — to how hard he’s breathing over Link’s neck, how close his mouth is to that mark, how the stance he still keeps and the way he still moves comes off like dominance, like he’s trying to prove to anyone who might be looking he’s the only one who can give this omega what he needs. That he _owns Link._. 

He bites down, not enough to break the skin again, but enough to pull a thrilled gasp from Link and a hard shiver that Rhett can feel through his skin, everywhere they’re pressed together.

Rhett’s not like that outside of his ruts. They’ve talked about it, actually, because _after_ Rhett feels bad about. Worries if it’s too much, because they’ve never been like that. Legally, he knows Link is considered to belong to him, but everything between them has always been so mutual that it’s a strange and unsettling feeling to think on how perfect it felt to possess Link so completely.

Link quiets slowly, his whimpers fading off as Rhett stills inside him and settles heavily against him. There’s nowhere they can go. In a minute, after Rhett’s caught his breath, he’ll shift them so Link’s more comfortable, but right now he just needs a second. Link surfaces a little, too exhausted to do anything in the moment of awareness, but he groans softly and turns his head, nuzzling into the bundled up sweater beneath his head. He’s so full of Rhett, the thickness of his knot and the cum that doesn’t seem like it’ll ever stop. 

It’s a long time before Link catches his breath enough to complain about how they’re laying, and when he does he weakly tries to just shift them and, failing, grumbles, “…you’re heavy.”

“I’m dead,” comes the tired response from Rhett, who’s obviously grinning against his neck at the joke. He amuses himself so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More soon. :) 
> 
> (And apparently soon a prequel...)


End file.
